


what he wouldn't give

by aizensosuke



Category: Bleach
Genre: Affection, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Complicated Relationships, Deal with a Devil, Established Relationship, Fertility Issues, Freeform, M/M, Mates, Old Gods, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 16:16:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17770094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aizensosuke/pseuds/aizensosuke
Summary: kyoraku seeks the assistance of the being beneath ukitake's skin.





	what he wouldn't give

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [i'll risk everything if it's for you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17577380) by [aizensosuke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aizensosuke/pseuds/aizensosuke). 



There are some forces, Kyoraku Shunsui knows, that one should never call upon.

He knows more than he should, of that much he is certain. Others in the Gotei Thirteen know, though he has no way of knowing how many of them do. How careful has his mate been, to keep his torso hidden from most of them? Unohana knows because she has to know, has had to touch his bare skin to examine him more times over the years they have lived than Kyoraku cares to remember. Yamamoto knows, and he has every reason to believe that a man like Urahara Kisuke would know everything worth knowing in this world.

Of course, Kyoraku knows. He knew the first moment he never saw Ukitake’s bare skin.

They were children, then, but he was reverent just the same as he touched the black marking on Ukitake’s skin. Had he known the significance? Of course not. But the eye had looked at him, and he felt deep down in his soul that the eye had  _ seen _ him, too.

It would not be the first nor the last time Kyoraku had touched those markings. He touched them every time he and Ukitake were intimate with one another, every time their bodies were tied together. When he touched those markings when Ukitake was in heat, he could have sworn he felt them throbbing under his fingers, reacting to his touch. It was only on the night when he first told Ukitake he intended to mark him as his mate that Ukitake sat down with him and explained to him about what— and  _ who _ — Mimihagi was.

To most, it would have seemed monstrous. It had to Kyoraku in the very beginning, when he learned of what Mimihagi demanded, when he thought of how Ukitake was small and helpless and could never hope to agree to such terms of his own free will. But there was no taking Ukitake as he was, in his entirety, and loving him, without coming to love the darkness that curled around his body and sunk deep inside of his skin.

A living primordial being. A creature of darkness and immense, impossible power.

The night is quiet and still and Kyoraku listens to the nothingness, the soft breeze and the crickets in the grass, the summer air warm and lazy and heavy on top of him. Moving at all seems impossible in this and yet he finds himself rolling onto his side, stretching out a hand toward Ukitake’s turned back, toward the dark tattoo there. How often has he touched this mark when Ukitake sleeps? It had to be when he was unaware. It had to be selfless, to be just the two of them. Ukitake could never be a part of all of it.

“Are you there?” His voice is low and raspy, his eyes drooping even as he fights to keep them open. “I know you are. You’re always there, aren’t you?”

_ Of course, Kyoraku Shunsui. _ And the darkness under his hand seems to move, pressing back into his touch.  _ I am always here. I am as much a part of him as he now is. _

The voice is not quite a voice but Kyoraku hears the words just the same, the voice beyond them, soft and whisper-faint but drowning out all other noise. When Ukitake shifts back, instinctively seeking his touch even in his sleep, it only presses Mimihagi back into Kyoraku’s grasp that much more, furthering the contact between them.

“There you are.” Kyoraku presses his fingers into the mark and he can  _ feel _ the purr even though he knows no one else could hear it. Only him. Only he has been graced with this contact. “I wanted to talk to you about Jushiro, if you’re in the mood to talk.”

_ With you? Perhaps. _ Mimihagi’s pressure against his hand increases and Kyoraku answers, stroking along that darkness, feeling the way it thrums beneath his hand.

Though Ukitake had told him the rumors— Mimihagi-sama, the Right Hand of the Soul King— Kyoraku thinks that remaining in Ukitake’s body for so long has affected it. Has taught it to feel the pleasure of physical touch, the gentleness of Kyoraku’s touch against the physical manifestation of its presence in Ukitake’s body. At any rate, it always responds so favorably when he has time to just lie here and talk to it.

He leans in, presses a kiss to the center of Ukitake’s back, against the darkness, and feels the purr intensify. “Thought you said you were above our concepts of life? You respond just like an omega does when they’re suitably pleased. Just like Jushiro does.”

_ You are presumptuous to assume you could have a similar effect on me that you do on him, _ Mimihagi says, but there is no countering the soft undercurrent of its voice.  _ What is it that you want to discuss with me, Shunsui? You have been distant lately. _

“I know. I’m sorry. There’s been trouble in the Seireitei. I’m sure you’ve seen that much.” He runs his fingers over the darkness again before flattening his palm against it, almost like a deep massage. Ukitake sighs softly in his sleep and Mimihagi presses back into him.

_ The child? I know of his existence. I have seen him through Jushiro’s eyes.  _ Mimihagi still touches him, but it feels more like a question not, unasked but there just the same.

In answer, Kyoraku presses a kiss to that tattoo once more. “Then you should know what I’m going to ask you. I know what your power does. I’m asking if it’s… If it might have—”

_ It has not. His own frailty is all that stands within your way, though… I could be of assistance if you are so keen, still. _ There it is, the offer he was waiting for.

“What do you want from me? You know I’d give you just about anything because you’re him, too.” And marking Ukitake meant accepting Mimihagi, and whatever it contained within it. It meant accepting and loving both of them selflessly and without hesitation, promising to protect both of them as long as Mimihagi was a part of Ukitake.

If there was no true line between the two of them, who was Kyoraku to discriminate?

He might imagine the way that tattoo seems to curl away from Ukitake’s skin for just a moment, revealing the pale skin beneath, to twine around his wrist with a lover’s touch.  _ Your kind always think the worst of me, thinking I will always make demands of you. _

“Of course. My apologies.” Kyoraku presses his lips to his own skin, tastes the darkness there, feels it shiver against him. “It is about offering freely, of my own volition.”

_ You have always offered yourself freely to me, have you not? _ Mimihagi creeps further up his arm and Kyoraku lets it, unafraid of what its touch means.

How could he be afraid, when Ukitake has been nothing but fearless this whole time, unafraid of what it means to carry a fallen god within his body? Kyoraku would have burst. The sheer amount of power contained beneath his skin would have left him splitting at the seams, struggling to hold everything within, and yet there were no seams between Ukitake and Mimihagi. They lived and breathed as one endless entity, one being.

The only thing they did not share was the same voice.

Perhaps he had been afraid as a child when he was too young to truly understand, but so much of that fear had been awe, as well, that such a powerful being was within his grasp, responding to his touch, to his voice. He had told Ukitake such things, and for a long time, Ukitake simply did not believe him. When Kyoraku was older and could describe the experience in a more tangible way, Ukitake believed him. They could hear the same voice, feel the same power. And he was grateful, always grateful, for Kyoraku’s acceptance.

_ He will always be grateful that you remain by his side even though I am here, _ Mimihagi tells him, and Kyoraku smiles softly, curls his fingers so he can feel that curl of darkness between them, wrapped in his grip.  _ So many were afraid of him when he was a child because they saw me upon his skin. It is why he hides now. It is why he is so afraid. _

“You’re not so frightening,” Kyoraku tells it, and that darkness  _ purrs _ against him again.

_ What do you offer to me, Kyoraku Shunsui? I could take your body, too. _ The offer has always been on the table, that much he knows. A bond that would tie the two of them together tighter than anything, even the mating mark on Ukitake’s skin.

“That wouldn’t be so bad, you know. We’d be even closer then.” And he would let Mimihagi in, let it curl in against his heart where Ukitake already resides.

_ I know you would. _ He thinks Mimihagi is laughing, or as close as it can to laughing.  _ A fool. _

“Is it foolish to love you, too? I wonder.” Kyoraku bends his head, lets his lips trace a path along the darkness spilling against his own skin, tracing it back to Ukitake’s shoulder blade. “But I don’t regret it. You’re a part of him. I love every part of him.”

Mimihagi grips his hand in return and Kyoraku smiles softly.  _ So you say, Shunsui. _

“I think you love me, too. Even though you keep insisting you don’t know what that means.” Kyoraku laughs when the darkness retracts from his skin, squeezing just a little more firmly. “Now, now, don’t run away from me. We were having a conversation.”

_ You are very presumptuous. It is not a good look for someone in your position. _ The tone is petulant and Kyoraku wonders if Mimihagi can sound like that naturally, or if Ukitake’s existence has curbed it, has taught it more than even it can realize.

“Maybe, but you always like it when I come to talk to you and give you my undivided attention, don’t you? You’ve never touched me like this before.” Kyoraku smiles, brushes his thumb over those shadows, feels the way they move against his hand.

He’s kissed Ukitake’s back before and he does it again, and again, trailing his lips along those pulsing shadows, teasing them with brushes of his tongue, a delicate scrape of his teeth that is so faint Ukitake does not even react to it. He knows Ukitake’s scent better than his own, the sweetness of snowdrops, but the scent in the room is different, older and sharper, pressing in against him like a powerful reiatsu. Kyoraku does not retract from it but reaches out toward it with his own. He would never refuse Mimihagi’s touch.

The darkness almost takes a shape above him, almost something he can reach out and hold, feel the weight of resting on top of his body. Kyoraku smiles, and feels something like a mouth touching his own, something like fingers brushing over his skin.

_ You are a fool because you have no idea of what forces you trifle with, and yet here you are. _ The voice is everywhere and nowhere all at once.  _ If I want your body, will you give it? _

“You want my body? You can have it. You needed Juu-chan’s lungs, right? You can have mine. Or my heart, I feel like that’d be more appropriate.” His hand wanders upward, gripping the edge of his yukata to drag it down, exposing his chest to the shadows.

It’s hard to see through the darkness now, clouding the entire room, expanding impossible from its anchor as it curls around him, pressing down against him.  _ You know not of what you ask, Shunsui. Perhaps there is something I want from you, after all. _

“It’s yours.” Kyoraku smiles softly at the space above him, the shadows there, the dark and the endless void and all it symbolizes. “I told him I’d give him anything, didn’t I?”

_ We are not the same. We are merely inhabiting the same body for the moment being. _ And of course, they always would be. Kyoraku knew what it meant. He knew what Ukitake carried inside of him, that blooming potential, the darkness shaping him into something new and wild and powerful, something that would consume everything that he was.

But not tonight. Not in this room. Perhaps, if it was never necessary… Perhaps, never.

Mimihagi chuckles.  _ Perhaps never, indeed. The Soul King has been in power for thousands upon thousands of years. This is only insurance. It may not come to pass. _

“Then we’ll have plenty of time together, won’t we?” They had already had a century together. A few centuries more, maybe an eternity, was hardly a curse. Mimihagi was not cruel. It was not cold and empty. “I wouldn’t mind that, so much. I suppose our kits would know about you, too, but that’s not so bad. I don’t think you’d never hurt them.”

The void seems to consider.  _ I did not hurt your Jushiro, did I? I protected him. _

“That you have. You’ve given him a chance at life. But, this life isn’t fulfilling for him. At least, not yet.” And it could be, if they could but figure out the last part of it.

It was not for lack of trying, of course. Kyoraku had been faithful to him for the duration of their relationship, had been there to see him through all of his heats without complaint and with as much tender reassurance as he could give him. Nothing had ever taken root. There was never even a pregnancy scar, and no amount of medical testing had ever given them a true problem to tackle together. It was merely believed that Ukitake was ill, that his body was too frail, that nothing would ever work as long as he was ill.

_ Stagnation, _ Mimihagi murmurs, and Kyoraku hums in answer.  _ But I have not touched his womb, as I said. I wonder how our body would change should I grant you this. _

“You know I’d take care of both of you. But you can’t touch them. I can’t imagine what would happen if you did.” Or he could, and the results were never pretty. He would gladly take it on himself, but he would never force that choice onto another.

_ Do you despise his parents for forcing me upon him, then? _ The question lies heavy in the air and Kyoraku chuckles softly, lips twisting into a wry smile.

“Of course I do. You don’t make a choice like that against someone’s will or without their consent. But he’s happy that you’re here, so I don’t blame you.” And it kept Ukitake  _ alive, _ which was more than Kyoraku could ever do despite his best efforts. No matter how hard he fought, there was no curing that illness. If there was, someone would have found it. The doctors had given up. In the end, Mimihagi was the only one with an answer.

_ I would protect him, you know. My chosen, blessed vessel. _ Mimihagi seems to curl against the front of his chest, a cat searching for attention.  _ Those thoughts of yours, again. What will I take of you, I wonder… Your body is whole. There is so much to take. _

“But not my eyes, right? Because you have your own.” And as if in answer, an eye opens in the darkness, peering down at him. Black as the night, the sclera a blinding white.

_ I do have my own, and it can see farther than you can imagine. _ Kyoraku stretches a hand up, brushes his fingers along the shadows beside that eye. Unafraid, even now. Unafraid even with Mimihagi staring directly into him, into his very soul.  _ You want children for your mate. It will be a long and arduous task for him to take upon himself, carrying them. He is weak even with my presence, and there is only so much I can do. _

“I know that. I’ll take care of him and the kits, like I said. And you. All I ask is that you assist him in getting pregnant, because I haven’t been able to do it on my own.” And he’s tried so  _ damned _ hard, always blaming himself for Ukitake’s disappointed smiles.

_ Very well. _ Mimihagi leans closer to him, and Kyoraku can just feel the brush of lips against his own.  _ You will give me yourself, Kyoraku Shunsui, and I shall take it. _

The shadows dissipate and Ukitake stirs next to him, rolling over to look at him with bleary eyes, his face flushed. “Shunsui,” he murmurs, and his voice is soft, and needy, and every part of it goes straight to Kyoraku’s cock embarrassingly fast. “I’m… So warm.”

“Are you?” Kyoraku rolls over to touch him, fingers tracing the soft pink flush in Ukitake’s cheeks. “I guess you are. Do you need me to go get Unohana, or—”

“No.” Ukitake swallows hard and reaches for him, and his scent, overwhelming and floral sweet, washes over Kyoraku like a benediction.”I just need you. Come here. I need…”

His voice breaks in a whine and Kyoraku yanks him across the futon, crushing their mouths together as he sweeps the blanket off of Ukitake’s body. He’s  _ burning _ like he does in heat, gasping softly against Kyoraku’s mouth, rutting down against his thigh for friction. Hot and wet though Kyoraku hasn’t touched him yet, whining softly against his mouth.

Neither of them sees it until the next morning when the two of them are dressing, Ukitake’s hand stretching out to brush the dark ink on his chest. “What is this, Shunsui?”

“Huh,” Kyoraku says, tracing the shape of a handprint there, something gripping him, nameless and untouchable. “Looks like Mimihagi-sama, right? I’ll have to keep that hidden.”

“I suppose so.” Ukitake frowns, touches his stomach. “Come. I need to visit Retsu today. I’m not feeling so well, I don’t think. Maybe it was whatever happened last night.”

“That so?” Kyoraku moves closer, presses the back of his hand to Ukitake’s forehead like he doesn’t know what’s caused this. “You don’t feel feverish.”

Ukitake shrugs, ties his obi around his waist. “I feel nauseous, though. Maybe I’ve caught something? A summer flu… Why would Mimihagi-sama touch you like that? Though I suppose it makes sense. You’re my mate. Maybe that means you’re connected, as well.”

“Maybe so,” Kyoraku says. “C’mon, let’s get you to the Fourth. We got a long day ahead of us and I’m not about to let you think you’re second to any of it.”

He adjusts his kimono to hide the hint of the handprint that shows from the edge of his shitagi and kosode, chuckling to himself as he wraps his arm around Ukitake’s waist, presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. There are scratch marks on his back that still sting dully and bruises shaped like fingerprints on his shoulders, no doubt matching bruises pressed into the small of his back, but none of it smarts as much as the ink on his chest.

But he doesn’t mind. He offered everything, after all. And he will never regret it.

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i've asked myself a thousand times what being in a relationship with someone marked by a primordial god would mean and this is my tentative answer to that question. also shunsui's relationship with ohana leads me to believe he'd be much the same with mimihagi if they knew about one another, and this au would mean they'd have to.
> 
> this happens in the same universe as i'll risk everything but it's more adjacent to the action which is centered firmly on shinji and aizen. it was in my system, so i had to get it out.


End file.
